


I Can't Promise it's not Written in the Stars

by platonicbullshit



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Dancer AU, F/M, Songfic, i almost listed ben platt as a character, idk how else to tag this, kinda????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 13:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicbullshit/pseuds/platonicbullshit
Summary: When it’s clear that the man is not going to find whatever he’s so desperately searching for, Tessa sighs and moves from the position she’d been frozen in at the middle of the room and marches up to him. She sticks out a hand for him to shake and looks at him expectantly.“Hello, I’m Tessa Virtue,” she says, fighting to not allow a whine of frustration at this man’s clear lack of professionalism creep into her voice. His head snaps upward once again, this time seemingly surprised at the sudden lack of distance between them. His eyes go wide and it only serves to frustrate Tessa further.“Right, hi.” The man in front of her says, pulling one hand out of the bag he still hasn’t given up on and taking the one of hers she’d offered. “Scott Moir. Choreographer.”





	I Can't Promise it's not Written in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I told you I'd be back with something fun!!
> 
> This is for Bree, who puts up with my constant stream of VM bullshit and who saw that I had "Ben Platt songfic??" in my notes and basically demanded I write it. You're welcome, bitch.
> 
> I highly, highly, highly recommend watching the music video for Ben Platt's song, "Grow As We Go," before reading. This probably won't make much sense without that context.
> 
> Oh yeah. This is kind of a songfic to Grow as we Go by Ben Platt.

“You say there’s so much you don’t know, you need to go and find yourself,” the soft guitar and lilting voice floats out of the speakers and fills the barren room as Tessa sits in a straddle and rolls her neck out. She’s the first one to the studio, which isn’t surprising considering her near-obsession with punctuality.

But today in particular she’d made a point to be early. It’s her first day on this job, on any job, and she wanted to be both mentally and physically prepared. She’d never booked a professional gig like this before, doesn’t know the protocol. Will the choreographer expect them to be warm? Will they run through a quick barre, maybe do some floor work?

She can’t be sure, so she arrives an extra thirty minutes early to warm up on her own. She lets the music, which she’d been instructed to keep very private, fill the space and her body and her mind. She does some crunches and a set of hundreds and goes through her leg swings at one of the barres pushed up against the far wall. She eventually discards her sweater but leaves on her trash bag pants, not sure what proper attire is for a commercial gig and self-conscious about her leotard and tights.

She stands in the middle of the room, facing the expansive wall of mirrors, arms wrapped around her torso, and watches the clock tick toward ten. Her reflection looks tiny, a smudge of pale pink and black against a stretch of wood and white paint. She feels utterly green.

The minute hand is four tick marks past the top of the clock hanging on the wall when the door to the studio opens and a man comes bustling in. He’s sorting through the bag hanging over his shoulder and still talking to someone Tessa thinks must have stopped being able to hear him several large steps ago. She clears her throat and his head snaps up.

“Oh, hey.” He says, nodding his head quickly in her direction before diving back into his bag. Tessa fights the urge to roll her eyes and start tapping her foot.

When it’s clear that the man is not going to find whatever he’s so desperately searching for, Tessa sighs and moves from the position she’d been frozen in at the middle of the room and marches up to him. She sticks out a hand for him to shake and looks at him expectantly.

“Hello, I’m Tessa Virtue,” she says, fighting to not allow a whine of frustration at this man’s clear lack of professionalism creep into her voice. His head snaps upward once again, this time seemingly surprised at the sudden lack of distance between them. His eyes go wide and it only serves to frustrate Tessa further.

“Right, hi.” The man in front of her says, pulling one hand out of the bag he still hasn’t given up on and taking the one of hers she’d offered. “Scott Moir. Choreographer.”

Their joined hands pump up and down a few times and Tessa takes the moment of silence to appreciate the man in front of her. He’s taller than her, not by much, but enough. His jawline is chiseled, and she has a strange urge to reach out and touch it, as if to see if it feels as sharp as it looks. His hair is long and messy and probably the perfect length to twist her fingers through.

“You’re late.” Her free hand lifts to cover her mouth immediately and she cringes as the words leave her mouth against her will. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that.”

Scott has the good graces to laugh at this, and he releases the hand he’d still been holding. “Hey, no hard feelings. I’m sorry about that, by the way. Punctuality is not my strong suit.”

Tessa wants to hate him. She wants to be upset that he’d been late, that he had been impolite, that he’s so unbelievably attractive that just looking at him and shaking his hand makes her say idiotic things. But she can’t, because she’s been talking to him for less than a minute and she can already tell he’s charming and funny and has a good sense of humor.

He’s also wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with a very visible hole near the left shoulder and he doesn’t look like any of the guys she’d known growing up at the National Ballet School and Tessa wonders what she got herself into.

“Well, shall we get started?” Scott has dropped his bag down against the mirrors, inches from where Tessa had neatly arranged her own things nearly an hour ago. Tessa looks around in confusion.

“Shouldn’t we wait for my partner?” She’s sure that she had auditioned for a duet, had submitted videos of her lifts from school and more recent projects she’d worked on at the studio she teaches at.

Scott laughs at the look on her face as he moves toward the middle of the room, stretching out his shoulders. Tessa wraps her arms around herself again, worry and doubt growing inside of her. Had she said something wrong again? Was she really less than fifteen minutes into her first rehearsal for a paid performance and already completely fucking it up?

“I am your partner, kiddo.” Scott explains, now jogging in place and swinging his arms. She moves toward him, and she knows confusion must still be lining her face because Scott just laughs again and shakes his head. “I’m choreographing and dancing. It can be done.”

His tone is gentle, but Tessa still feels her face heating in embarrassment.

“Sorry, I’ve never really done this before.” She explains, looking at the floor through the mirror and avoiding his gaze.

“What, danced for a music video?” Scott is lunging now, and Tessa finds it difficult to not let her eyes linger on his ass or the strip of skin that gets exposed as his shirt is tugged upwards by his position.

“Yeah,” she breathes out, still staring straight ahead.

“Well, congratulations! You booked a great one.”

“Kind of cocky coming from you, mister choreographer and dancer,” the words escape her before she can think through them, and she flushes further. She lets out a relieved breath when Scott laughs.

“I guess so,” he concedes. “But still, this is going to be a great shoot. Ben’s fantastic, the concept is great, and I happen to think the choreography’s going to be pretty epic, as well.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but feels a bit of the tension that’s been building in her body release. Maybe this is going to be okay.

“Are you warm?” He asks as he stands from his stretch. Tessa nods. “Great, lets get started.”

++

“You say you’d rather be alone, ‘cause you think you won’t find it tied to someone else.” Ben’s words ring in her ears as she steps off the subway and onto the busy platform. Her eyes scan over several signs lining the station, reassuring herself she’d gotten off at the right stop, before she climbs a staircase and emerges into the cool New York evening.

It had been a long day, and Tessa desperately wants to curl up in her massive hotel room bed, squishy robe wrapped around her body, soaking in a blissful silence. Unfortunately she has to fight through three blocks of disoriented tourists and frustrated New Yorkers before that dream can become a reality.

She elbows her way through the crowd, somehow finding herself fighting against the flow of pedestrian traffic, not daring to even breathe as she scurries through the foreign city for fear of upsetting the delicate balance that is New York City.

The day had been overwhelming to say the least. The morning had consisted of meetings, mostly, introductions to the team and Ben Platt himself, who had been quiet and kind and Tessa kind of thinks they should be best friends now. And then after a quick lunch she and Scott had slipped away into a studio to work through the choreography, getting the movements back in their bones.

Ben and the director had stopped by briefly, watched a run through of the piece and given undoubting approval. Tessa had flushed under their praises, but Scott had just wrapped an arm around her waist and accepted for the both of them.

Despite her social overload, she’s glad she’d had Scott there to prop her up all day. She’s grateful that her first professional dancing job is with a partner, an incredibly supportive and empathetic one at that, because she’s not sure she could have navigated this on her own.

But now she’s desperate to be alone. She’d slipped through Scott’s grasp as they left the studio they’d rehearsed in, taking advantage of his distraction as he got caught up in a conversation with the receptionist, whom he’d clearly met previously. She’d rushed towards the nearest subway station and stepped onto the first train that arrived, praying that it took her in at least the right general direction. It hadn’t, of course, so she’d gotten off at the next stop that intersected with the proper line, and continued her rush to solitude.

Unfortunately, Scott is much more familiar with the city than she is, and he somehow beats her to the hotel, intercepting her in the lobby.

She almost crashes into him, so desperate to make it into an elevator whose doors she can see sliding shut that she doesn’t notice the man step directly into her pathway.

“Whoa, whoa, kiddo.” He grabs her by the arms and she nearly jumps out of her skin. “Oh, oops. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

She’s shaking in his arms now, adrenaline coursing through her veins, and she knows she won’t relax until she’s alone. But she can’t make her mouth work, so she can’t express this to Scott.

He seems to notice, though, whether from the panicked look on her face or the way she’s shaking violently in his hands, she can’t be sure. “Hey, are you okay?”

She looks up into his face, features soft and eyes wide and concerned and she nearly breaks down right there.

“I need to go.” She breaks free of Scott’s grasp and practically sprints to the elevators, slamming her hand against the button to request one going upward. If she were functioning properly she’d be shocked at the speed at which one becomes available, doors sliding open and revealing a blissfully empty little room into which she steps. She presses the button for her floor and immediately slumps to the ground.

She doesn’t manage to lose Scott, who steps into the elevator immediately behind her, but he seems to understand that she needs silence now and he just takes up post in the corner, arms crossed over his chest and worry settling in his jaw and brow.

The ride to the twelfth floor is quiet and stormy, with Tessa fidgeting anxiously in one corner and Scott working his jaw in the other. When the doors slide open, Tessa scrambles to her feet and races down the hall, desperate to reach the blissful solitude she can only find behind that door.

Scott is hot on her heels, and she lets him slip inside behind her. When the door is closed and she sinks into the bed, Scott is there immediately, wrapping her up in a tight embrace.

Every part of her body is screaming, telling her to run and hide and get as far from human contact as possible, but she gives in and sinks into his arms. Despite the urge to be alone rippling through her body, she doesn’t think she would be any more at ease if she were completely alone than she is now. Scott is silent and solid and still, and she doesn’t mind.

She’s so tired, tired from talking and tired from dancing and tired from being awake since 8 that morning. She doesn’t want to fight this, Scott’s presence or her body’s protesting, so she gives in. She lets Scott hold her, and thinks that maybe she can be alone even when he’s by her side.

++

“Who said it’s true that the growing only happens on your own? They don’t know me and you…” As though the entire team hasn’t been listening to the song for at least a week, it plays triumphantly through the set at the end of the shoot. They’re all gathered in a huddle, celebrating over tea and coffee and Tessa and Scott guzzling water from their bottles.

Ben smiles that sad smile of his, not unlike the one he’d directed at her as they shot the final take of the last scene, as she stood in the doorway, gasping desperately, and he uttered the last few lines of the hauntingly beautiful song.

The hauntingly beautiful song that she’s now listened to at least a thousand times and she would happily never listen to again. She’s relieved when it comes to an end, and Ben lifts his mug of herbal tea into the center of their little group.

“I want to thank all of you for helping me bring this vision to life. You each played such a crucial role in this production, from the development to the final stages of editing to come. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with.” Ben lifts his mug, and Tessa tilts the water bottle she’s still clutching in one hand.

She’s inclined to agree. She may not have much to compare it to, but she thinks this was a pretty stellar experience for her first professional booking. From the beginning Scott has been by her side, never anything less than encouraging, quite literally holding her hand as she navigates the world of professional commercial dance for the first time.

And since arriving in New York, she’s found herself consistently supported by the rest of the team. She glances around the circle and looks into the faces of people she’s come to adore over the course of just a few days. The director’s content smile feels like the best praise, a cameraman grins at her in a way that makes the edges of his eyes crease, the man from wardrobe standing beside her bumps her shoulder with his. Tessa feels, for the first time in a long time, like she belongs here.

And then there’s Scott, standing directly across from her, focus zeroed in on her. His eyes burn amber in the light of the warehouse, his arms are crossed over his chest in a way that makes her mouth water, and there’s a trace of a smirk across his lips and she thinks she’s probably the only person in the room who could identify it.

They lock eyes, and Tessa’s pretty sure Ben is talking again but she doesn’t hear him. “This was a team effort,” she thinks Ben is saying. _We make a good team_ , Tessa thinks. “None of this would be possible without all of you,” Ben says. _I wouldn’t want to do this without you_ , Tessa says with her eyes. “I am so grateful for all of you,” Ben continues. _I am so grateful for you_ , Scott blinks at her, and she knows he got the message.

“Tessa, Scott, you two have done incredible work here.” Her name coming from Ben’s mouth snaps Tessa out of her silent conversation with Scott, and she turns to look at the other man. Ben’s smile holds a trace of something secret, now, and Tessa wonders if her knew what he was seeing when he looked between her and Scott. “Your choreography brought this story to life, and I have no words to describe the beauty you created. Thank you.”

Tessa nods and smiles at Ben, not trusting herself to speak anymore. There’s a lump sitting deep in her throat, and she thinks that if she tries to speak all that will come out is a sob.

She glances back at Scott, and she knows he’s feeling the same way.

++

“I don’t think you have to leave if to change is what you need, you can change right next to me.” Tessa knows these lyrics so well she’s probably singing them in her sleep. After four consecutive days of rehearsal, the melodic guitar is as familiar as Scott’s hands on her back, and she’s getting tired of both of them.

Ben Platt croons over the speakers as they move around each other, weaving limbs together and circling one another and Tessa wrapping her fingers in Scott’s shirt in a way that had made her endlessly uncomfortable just three days prior but now sends a thrill up her spine. Scott lifts her effortlessly until she’s suspended upside-down and Tessa squeezes her eyes shut as to not see her reflection in the mirrors.

She’s getting more confident in the lifts, but she doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to seeing herself hanging in midair with just Scott’s arms wrapped around her waist. And if she loses her wits while she’s there, the likelihood of her folding in half to drop to the ground in the next three counts is slim to none.

When she’s been placed on the ground and flipped herself over, Scott steps out of her peripheral vision and gives her the stage. This is something she hadn’t been banking on, and it had been plaguing her for days since Scott had introduced it. Her solo.

She’s danced solos before, had performed variations in recitals and the Nutcracker in school. Since she’d begun teaching she’s occasionally been invited to perform her own choreography for showcases and open houses, and she’s always standing before her classes to teach.

And this isn’t even a solo, really. Scott steps in behind her every few counts to catch her in a position or scoop her up into a lift and then they interact for a moment before he disappears again dramatically. She’ll barely be alone, definitely not for longer than the scenes where Scott has told her she’ll be running wildly through the halls of an abandoned warehouse, but this feels more daunting.

Because this is just her standing in an empty room with no one to hide behind. She can’t blush and smile bashfully and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear like she always does when she’s nervous. No, this is her, alone in a room, dancing in front of a camera, acting distraught, looking like her lover keeps slipping from her grasp.

She falls to the ground. It’s a part of the choreography, and she lands on her right hip and elbow as practiced, but when she hits the wooden floor, she suddenly can’t get up. The music plays on and she knows she’s supposed to be on her feet now, and Scott is waiting for her to launch herself into his arms again, but she’s paralyzed.

When she isn’t up and running at her cue, Scott turns to find her. Her back is to the mirrors but she knows what he’s seeing. She can see herself in her mind, sitting on her ass in the middle of a dance studio, eyes wide and starting to fill with tears, looking like a little kid who fell on the playground.

It only takes a beat for Scott to realize something’s not right, and he crosses the room quickly and pauses the music before returning to her side.

“Hey, hey, kiddo,” Scott’s voice is soothing and before she knows what’s happening he’s sitting next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “What’s up?”

She’s crying now, tears streaming down her face and silent sobs making her shoulders shake under the heavy weight of his arm.

“I can’t do it.” She whispers, hating the shake in her voice.

Scott laughs, and Tessa shrinks further into herself.

She’d known from the moment he’d stepped into the studio the first day that he would never see her as an equal. He had exuded pure confidence, his shoulders thrown back and his head held high. When he’d told her he was both her choreographer and partner her stomach had dropped slightly. Working with a professional choreographer was completely new to her, but now she had to dance alongside him as well? And over the course of their three days of rehearsal she had stood by his side and noted his ease as they danced, the slightly cocky tilt of his chin, the surety behind each movement. Tessa doesn’t think Scott has ever questioned any flex of a muscle in his life.

She’d gone home the first day and made the mistake of Googling him, heart sinking further as pages and pages of results loaded, articles about the tours he’d danced in and the shows he’d been on and the videos he’d choreographed for. All that confidence had been the result of years of hard work – according to one article, he’d booked his first professional gig at 15 – and it was completely warranted. He was _good_.

So now, after three days of comparing herself, utterly under qualified, to Scott Moir, professional dancer of more than a decade, the realization that _she couldn’t do this_ had finally knocked her off her feet. Literally.

She sits there, breathing heavily through sporadic sobs, with Scott still wrapped around her, shaking with laughter. She turns to glare at him and he meets her eye with a steady gaze.

“I’m sorry, I thought you just said you couldn’t do this.” And this is the moment, the one where he tells her he agrees, has been thinking the same thing all along, has been waiting for it to be too much for her so he can find a dancer better fitted to the role. She can’t breathe.

He surprises her when his arms tighten around her waist where they’ve landed, pulling her against his chest. He breathes into her hair for a minute, and although she’s sure she’s about to be fired, she feels weirdly relaxed.

“Tess, you’re the only person in the world who _can_ do this.”

++

“When you’re high I’ll take the lows, you can ebb and I can flow…” the lyrics reverberating around the room feel oddly relevant as Scott grips her waist and hoists her high into the air. She thinks there must be bruises developing in the shape of his fingers from how firmly he’s gripping her, and she tries to relax and pay attention to anything but the wood floor blurring underneath her.

Tessa thinks the rehearsal is going well. Despite her initial doubts about her qualifications for the job, she picks up the choreography quickly and she thinks she and Scott make good partners. When she spares a glance at the mirrors against the wall, they’re always making complimentary shapes, soft and sharp in just the right ways, two heads of dark hair blending into one mass of movement.

But the choreography is much more… _physical_ than she’s used to. Growing up in the ballet school, she’d partnered frequently, had grown used to a balancing touch at her hips while she spun en pointe, a firm grasp placed just so in a traditional lift.

This is nothing like the pas de deux variations she’d grown up learning.

No, this is her hands wrapped around his torso from behind, her fingers bunching up in the t-shirt he’s wearing, her palms grabbing at his face only for him to throw her hands off of him.

And that’s just the first eight count.

By the time they make it to the fifth eight count – after he convinces her that _yes, it’s really fine to touch me, I won’t bite, I promise_ – and he proposes the lift, she’s wary. She’s only just met this man half an hour ago, the majority of which was spent figuring out how to touch one another in a professional but realistically passionate way, and now he’s asking her to stand on his thighs.

Yeah, this definitely never happened in ballet school. It takes a little coaxing, but she decides she trusts him, so she steps one foot gingerly onto Scott’s thigh.

“Okay, good,” he says, hands wrapped around hers as she balances with one foot on his thigh, the other floating in midair as he works out the lift in his mind. “Now, swing your left leg around, over my shoulder.”

She does as instructed, tentative but giving into momentum.

“Now, sit over my shoulder. Here,” he turns to face the mirror, and she bobbles from her position situated with her legs on either side of his left shoulder. “Can you wrap your left leg under my shoulder?” He asks, cocking a head at their position in the mirror. She hooks her foot behind his back. “Great, now extend your right leg?”

They stay there for a moment, his hands gripping hers to keep her steady on his shoulders as he tweaks their position. When he’s happy, he nods at her through the mirror and she manages a small smile.

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” He asks teasingly.

She shakes her head. “Just not used to lifts like this. I think the last time I was on someone’s shoulders was when I was a little kid, and my dad would carry me around on his shoulders.”

He watches her through the mirror as she explains, a soft expression crossing his face. She forgets where she is for a minute, and then he lets out a puff of a laugh and she can feel his shoulders shake beneath her.

“I see,” he says, and he’s still looking at her in the mirror, but now a contemplative look has crossed his face. “Now, how do we get you down from there?”

They end up working out some kind of flip over the shoulder Tessa’s perched on, and it only takes four tries for her to work up the courage to do it at full speed. Scott’s there the whole time, one steady hand wrapped around her thigh, one hand squeezing her wrist as tight as she can bear.

When he senses her tensing up in fright, he takes advantage of their position and leans in towards her ear, whispering, “I’m here.”

He is there, and she knows it. He’s wrapped around her, firm under her hands, commanding but receptive. He’s there, he’s everywhere.

Her feet are barely on the ground before he has his hands wrapped around her waist and the look in his eyes is fierce and encouraging.

 _You trust me?_ His eyes ask.

 _Unendingly_ , hers say back.

And then she’s in the air, back arching, legs long above her, toes pointing. If there’s anything she learned in ballet school, it’s to always point her feet. Even if she’s currently attempting to defy gravity, her fingers digging into his shoulders and his palms cupping her sides the only harness she has. And then he’s turning, and she’s falling back to earth, and his arms move to wrap around her waist and hug her body to him and she’s wrapping her legs around his torso.

They pause then, forehead to forehead, breathing heavily. She pants from her position against his chest, and feels how it rises and falls in time with her own.

But then a mischievous look develops in Scott’s eyes and she knows he’s about to ask her to do something that will have her stomach dropping to the ground, far below her.

“Do you think you could do a backbend out of this position?” She really hates him at that moment.

Later, as she watches the footage back, she’ll admire the deep bend of her back as she folds herself onto the ground, peeling away from Scott’s body. She’ll lie on the cold cement of the warehouse they’re shooting in and long for the days of rehearsal in the studio with its nice, sprung wooden floors.

For now, she’ll do as he asks, landing in a heap on the floor and longing to surrender to the ache in her body before pushing herself up, taking Scott’s hand, and running it again.

++

“We’ll take it slow and grow as we go,” Tessa stands in the imaginary doorway, staring straight ahead. They’ve decided on the final position, her standing there, looking at Ben, as the final few guitar strums sound. She focuses on holding onto the emotion on her face, not giving in to the exhaustion that lies behind the desperation she’s painted on.

The music from the speakers dies out and Scott, leaning against the mirrors at the far end of the room, applauds.

“That was fantastic, T.” She’s not sure if the smile she feels splitting her face is in response to the compliment or the nickname that fell from his lips with ease. Whatever the cause, she feels it widen under his sincere gaze, and she ducks her head a bit.

“Thanks.”

“Lets run it again.”

He had finished the choreography with her guidance in rehearsal the day before. After an impromptu, mid-rehearsal ballet class, he’d begun to ask for her input, her opinion on this step or that arm. She’d been hesitant, but her confidence grew as he continued to insist that he valued her input and the piece would, in fact, be better because of it.

Rehearsal had ended on a triumphant note, with complete choreography and two happy dancers. She’d left in a hurry at the end, rushing to make a dinner reservation with her sister while she was in the city, and had promptly forgotten all about the piece.

But as she had lain in bed that night, a dark thought crossed her mind. She knew that Scott had told her that he wanted her to participate in the choreography, but a voice in a distant corner of her mind wondered if he had said that just to boost her confidence. How much of her choreography had he actually liked? Was he just trying to make her feel involved? Would she show up to rehearsal the next day to find the choreography completely changed, altered to meet Scott’s standards?

Tossing and turning wasn’t unfamiliar to Tessa, particularly when she was anxious or worrying about something, such as her partner and choreographer hating everything the contributed and changing the entire piece behind her back.

So she had shown up to rehearsal the next morning, grumpy and sleep deprived, dreading the changes she believed to be inevitable. She nursed her third cup of coffee within the hour and had to fight the urge to glare and hiss when Scott entered the studio, face shining and whistling the tune of the song she’d been listening to on repeat for three days.

This was going to be a long one.

They began by warming up in silence, as they had the day before. Tessa noticed that Scott joined her at the barre for pliés and tendus and a quick stretch. She gave him a shy smile across the barre as she did some leg swings to loosen her hips, which he returned with a broad, sunny grin.

When they were warm, they met in the center of the studio to begin rehearsing. They stood face-to-face, Scott’s hands on her arms, an intent look on his face. Tessa felt her stomach drop to her feet. This was the moment, this was when he told her he was changing everything. She bit her lip and told herself that under no circumstances was she going to cry.

“Let’s run it from the top, eh?”

Four runs in and Tessa felt her fears and anxiety lighten. They had stopped a few times to work out some kinks, places that didn’t flow naturally or where one of them had a new idea they wanted to try. But by the end, the choreography looked more or less the same, and he hadn’t seemed to single out and change any of the parts she had advised on.

Maybe he had been genuinely interested in her contributions to the piece.

The rest of rehearsal is spent running the choreography until they can’t possibly forget it, getting the movement into their bones, creating muscle memory. They practice their lifts until they stop fighting against each other, until Tessa slithers around Scott with ease, until they move as one being.

It’s surprisingly easy. They quickly learn to communicate in looks and grunts and a hand pressed firmly against a lower back or the inside of a wrist. The first time they complete a seamless, mistake-less run, ending with Tessa in her imagined doorway and Scott out of the imagined frame, he lets out a triumphant whoop and sweeps her up into his arms. She melts against him, and there’s something comforting about being wrapped up in him. These arms that she’s come to trust wound around her waist, big hands that she’s starting to memorize digging into her sides, his head tucked into her neck and breathing against her in time with her own panting. She feels safe in his arms, even when her feet are planted firmly on the ground, rather than being suspended in the air above.

They hold onto each other for what feels like an eternity but is in reality only a few moments. She starts to pull away when she becomes aware of the stickiness of her leotard pressed against his torso, when she thinks of the hair falling out of it’s ponytail that must be tickling his face, when she starts to wonder how awful she must smell. He stops her before she gets too far, though, arms tightening around her waist and a small noise escaping the back of his throat.

His head emerges from her shoulder as she turns to look at him, and his eyes are dark when they meet hers.

She lets out a huff of breath as his eyes flicker over her face. She watches him search her eyes, trace the constellation of freckles on her cheeks, follow the line of her nose, and land on her mouth. Her lips part slightly under his gaze, and she feels herself start to blush.

His head dips toward hers and suddenly it hits her how much she wants this, how much she has wanted this for the past three days. His lips brush against hers and she wants to cry in relief. His lips are chapped but soft, and if she could think straight she would admire the poetry in his kiss reflecting his entire being.

She just sinks further into the kiss instead.

++

“You won’t be the only one, I am unfinished, I’ve got so much left to learn.” Tessa finds herself humming along as she runs through the accompanying choreography in her head. They hadn’t finished the piece the previous day, and she’s afraid she’s forgotten a chunk in the middle, so she shows up early again for her and Scott’s second rehearsal to get some of her own practice in.

She walks through the quiet building, caught up in the lifts they’d gone through the day before. The last one they’d tried, less of a lift and more of an assist, was still plaguing her. She was having a hard time getting out of her head, trusting Scott to get her both up in the air as well as back safely on her feet.

She’s so distracted by her thoughts that she barges through the studio without noticing she’s not alone.

“Uh, hi, Tess.” Scott says to her as she pulls out her ear buds and she nearly leaps out of her skin.

“Oh my god!” She yelps, clasping one hand over her mouth and the other over her chest. “Shit, you scared me.”

“Sorry, T.” She sets down her stuff in the corner and turns to get a good look at the man in the room with her.

Where her partner and choreographer had been confident, if not cocky, the day before, today he looks awful. There’s a deep crease in his forehead where he’s scrunching his brows together and he’s clenching his jaw so tightly she wonders how he manages to speak.

“Is everything okay?” She asks gently, moving toward the center of the room where he stands.

“Yeah, fine.” He says sharply. “Actually, I’m really struggling with this bit of choreo. I thought I had it but it just doesn’t fit. And naturally now I’m blocked.”

She can feel the frustration radiating off of him, can see the tension rising as he works his jaw. She wants to reach out and soothe it with her hand.

“Will you show me what you were working on?”

He does, finally moving to restart the music to the right section of the song, and closing his eyes as he works through it. She watches in fascination. He’d seemed to have everything mostly worked out the day before, knowing at least a general idea of how the piece should move and flow, if not being able to direct her movements exactly. Now, though, he’s unsure, moving in short, stunted bursts. She can track his focus, as he spends an eight count paused, just working through his arms, and then moves on to his torso, before joining it all with his legs.

Tessa finds it enchanting.

The section he’s working on is short, and he eventually opens his eyes once again and crosses back over to the stereo to pause the music before looking at her expectantly. She stares right back.

“Well?” He asks, lifting his palms in her direction.

“It’s good,” she says. He raises his eyebrows at her skeptically. “It is. But I don’t know if it fits.”

“It doesn’t fit.” Scott repeats, and she nods.

“Yeah, you need something more fluid. It’s getting a little too… robotic.” She regrets her choice in words immediately, as Scott immediately crosses his arms over his chest and turns away from her. “I’m no choreographer. My experience is just working with the youth ballet in my hometown. But this music is soft and delicate, and your movement is sharp.”

He finally turns to face her again, and his face is open to her once more.

“You do ballet?” He asks.

“Yeah, you couldn’t tell?” She gestures to the leotard she’s wearing under her sweatpants and the bun she’d fashioned out of habit before heading to rehearsal.

“I guess it should have been obvious, especially considering I hired you.” Tessa gives him a look that clearly says _you’re an idiot_ , but she hopes he gets the teasing tone. “You just move so well.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“I mean, a lot of ballerinas are really stiff. Too formal. All that traditional training and shit.” Scott explains, shrugging. “You have a fluidity that typically comes with contemporary dancers.”

“Guess I’m not typical, then.”

“You, Tessa Virtue, are far from typical.” Tessa doesn’t remember moving, but they’re standing much closer together, now. She has to tilt her head upward to see his face. “Would you teach me something?”

“Some ballet?” She asks, taking a step backward and out of his space. He nods.

“I’ve never really taken a ballet class. I somehow managed to make it this far on contemporary and hip hop.” He gives a one-shouldered shrug and follows her to the barres pushed up against the far wall of the studio.

“Help me carry this to the middle of the room,” she instructs, lifting one end of a barre as he takes the other. They settle it at center stage, and she has him stand so he can face the barre and the mirror. She walks him through pliés and tendus and battement jétés.

Eventually they put the barres away and stand in the middle of the empty room and she comes up with a combination that includes both pirouettes and petit allegro. She applauds when he finishes in a tight fifth position, and he smiles at her, bright and genuine.

“I would never have believed you’d never taken a ballet class before,” she tells him. She watches in fascination as his smile turns from proud to bashful at her compliment.

“Maybe I just had a particularly good teacher.” He shoots the compliment right back at her and then it’s her turn to flush. “I think I know what needs to happen with the choreography, now.”

A wild look crosses Scott’s face and the moment is broken. Tessa rejoins him in the center of the room, takes his hand, and follows his lead.

++

“I don’t know how this river runs but I’d like the company through every twist and turn,” Scott whispers the lyrics against the side of her head. She’s still breathing heavily, an occasional sob escaping her, but she’s calmer now.

 _“Tess, you’re the only person in the world who_ can _do this.”_ His words play on repeat in her mind. He doesn’t think she can’t do this. He thinks she _can_ do this. He thinks she’s the only one in the whole world who can do this.

She doesn’t know what that means, but it sends pure relief through her, and that’s enough.

“I’ve never been good enough,” she says as she turns in his arms to face him. His legs are extended in a straddle, and she drapes hers over his thighs. His arms squeeze her waist when she settles, silently telling her he’s listening, his eyes encouraging her to continue. “When I was young, in school, I was good. But other girls were always better. Taller, skinnier, bendier. I had to work so hard to keep up with them.”

“I’m sure you were amazing,” Scott whispers, eyes dark and never leaving hers. She blushes at the compliment and drops her gaze.

“Like I said, I was good. But I spent hours in the studio, outside of classes and rehearsals, working on my own. I would stretch for two hours every day,” Scott lets out a gentle gasp at this, but she carries on. “One hour on each side. I told my mom I had more classes than I did so I could stay in the studio and practice my variations for hours after classes were over. The janitors knew me by name.”

She shifts in Scott’s lap slightly, if only to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts.

“I worked so hard, I hurt myself. I got an overuse injury in my legs from all the extra hours of practice.” Scott hums in acknowledgement, and Tessa is grateful, even if she thinks he’s just practicing an active listening technique. “It was the year I was supposed to join the professional company. My friends – or, peers, really, we were never close – were all signing contracts to start apprenticeships and I was signing forms so that a doctor could slice open my calves.”

“I’m so sorry, T.” Scott touches his forehead to hers, and she allows herself a small, watery smile.

“It’s okay. I had to, if I ever wanted to dance again. And god, I wanted to.” She takes a deep breath to prepare herself for the next part of her story. “It didn’t work. A year of physical therapy later, I was in the operating room again. But by then, my window had closed. Two surgeries, three years of physical therapy, all down the drain. The National Ballet didn’t want me anymore.”

There are tears on Scott’s face now, and she’s not sure if they’re hers, having transferred from their contact, or if he’s also crying at the tragic story of the promising young ballerina who had her dreams ripped from her grasp.

“So I went home,” Tessa shrugs, shaking herself out of the dark place she tends to go when she has to retell the story. “I got a job at the studio I danced with when I was really little, back before I joined the National Ballet School. I figure that I couldn’t have my dream, but the least I can do with my training is help others realize their potential. So here I am.”

“Did you ever consider auditioning for other companies?” Scott asks gently. Tessa shakes her head.

“I couldn’t bear the inevitable rejection. If I wasn’t good enough for the National Ballet, what would make me think a company that hadn’t groomed me from age 13 would want me?” She lets out a dark laugh at the thought.

“I wanted you,” Scott says plainly, and Tessa finally looks up at him again. His eyes are wide and sincere. “I was hired before Ben and the team knew the direction they wanted to go with the video. When we had the idea set, I was a part of the auditioning team. I stumbled on your submission – it was the end of a long day of in-person auditions and the last thing I wanted was to go through a dozen videos of women doing the same eight counts for four minutes. But then I got to yours, and I just knew it had to be you. There was something about the way you moved, I was entranced. You’re magical, Tessa.”

Tessa desperately wants to look anywhere other than Scott’s face, but she keeps her eyes locked with his. He gives her no signs that he might be lying, exaggerating to make her feel better.

“I’ve never seen someone dance like you do. It’s organic, like it radiates from somewhere deep inside of you. Sometimes I wonder if you even need to count, or if the music and movement just melds together in your bones. From the moment I saw you, I knew that there was no one else I wanted to do this with.” He shrugs.

She believes him.

++

“Who said it’s true that the growing only happens on your own? They don’t know me and you,” Tessa ignores the irony of the lyrics as she works through the duet in the empty studio. She’s not supposed to meet Scott until 11, but when she’d woken up naturally and early that morning, she had needed to move. So she’d pulled on a t-shirt and leggings and had piled her hair up and had walked to the studio they were rehearsing in.

She hadn’t considered the fact that the studio might be booked and she wouldn’t be able to use it until she was pulling open the front door, but the receptionist had just smiled at her in recognition and motioned her back.

Although she was not one for mornings, Tessa secretly loved early hours in empty studios. The weak morning light flooded in through the windows along one of the walls and Tessa set the music to play softly as she marked the choreography.

After her overwhelming first day in New York, Tessa was grateful for a few quiet hours of solo rehearsal. She’s not particularly productive, the choreography isn’t meant to be danced alone, but she enjoys herself nonetheless. She marks through the lifts and partnering sequences. After several run-throughs, she’s out of breath and desperate for water but she feels significantly more human.

She’s working through her solo part, focus zeroed in on performing each step to perfection, when the door to the studio swings open and Scott steps inside. She’s mid-step, balancing in an arabesque, and she falls out of it when he speaks.

“Tess! I wasn’t expecting you to be here already,” he says, putting his stuff down beside hers as has become routine. She stands in the middle of the room where she’d stopped in the middle of the step sequence, panting and watching him toe off his shoes and peel off his jacket.

Scott joins her in the center of the studio and wraps her up in a hug of greeting.

“I woke up early and I thought I’d come in a get some extra rehearsal time.” Tessa explains as Scott pulls away to start warming up. She moves to turn off the music that’s still playing on repeat over the studio speakers.

“You should have told me! I would have come in and worked with you.” When Tessa turns back around to look at him, Scott is squatting in a stretch and his eyes crawl slowly up her body to meet her eyes. A thrill shoots through her as she realizes he must have been looking at her ass.

“I wanted to work alone,” she explains, wrapping her arms around her torso and moving back toward him. He’s moving around to warm up his muscles, and she sinks into a stretch beside him.

“I mean, it’s a duet, kiddo. Pretty hard to practice alone.”

“It was a chance to focus on myself, my own technique. I know it’s a duet, but it was still nice to run through it by myself.” Tessa shrugs from her position on the floor, unable to meet Scott’s eyes. “Sometimes I just need to be alone.”

“Oh.” Tessa’s still not looking at him but she thinks his eyes have probably gone wide and his jaw has relaxed. “Is this about last night?”

Tessa shakes her head vehemently. Because it’s not, not really. She had wanted to be alone after their long day of meetings and rehearsals and a never-ending stream of social situations. And she had tried to escape him, but in the end she had let him stay. She didn’t mind his company, and in fact found his presence calming.

“If I hadn’t wanted you there, I would have kicked you out.” She tells him, tone light but not fully teasing. It does get a smile out of him, which she returns. “I just like to be alone. I couldn’t do this shoot without you, but that doesn’t mean that we have to do everything together.”

“I know, Tess.” Scott says, joining her on the ground to stretch. He rolls his eyes when she drops easily into her splits. “It’s just, you told me about overworking yourself when you were in school, and how you ended up hurting yourself. I don’t want you to think you have to push yourself harder in order to be good enough. We have exactly the right amount of rehearsal time, and it’ll be better if we work on it together, instead of sneaking off to get extra hours in.”

He raises his eyebrows at her and she reaches over to shove his shoulder, knocking him off balance so that he falls out of his stretch. He lands on his ass, pouting over at her, and she just laughs.

++

“You don’t ever have to leave, if to change is what you need, you can change right next to me.” Tessa hasn’t heard the song in days, but she still finds it stuck in her head as she moves through the hotel lobby behind Scott. She hums it under her breath as Scott checks in, and then she moves forward to get her own room sorted. Scott stays by her side the entire time, a hand resting on her back, a constant, comforting presence. She smiles at him when she collects her room key, and then gestures toward the elevators.

In the past week they’ve become masters of silent communication, and Tessa almost thinks she can tell what he’s thinking. A quiet ding rings out and Scott follows her into the elevator whose doors had slid open. She presses the button for floor 12 and steps back, waiting for him to select his own floor.

When he doesn’t, just moves to stand beside her, Tessa starts to doubt her ability to read him. She’s sure she’d heard his room number correctly, had seen the _844_ scrawled across the envelope he’d accepted. Shouldn’t he have selected the eighth floor?

The doors slide shut and the elevator moves upward. Tessa wonders if she should say something, bites her lip to prevent her from blurting anything embarrassing out before she can think it through. When the numbers creep past 5, 6, 7, 8, she takes a deep breath.

“Are you coming up?” Scott seems surprised at her words, looking shaken out of his thoughts when she speaks.

“Huh?” His brow furrows as he looks to the panel that displays the floor numbers climbing. “Oh, yeah, I just thought I would help you bring your stuff up.”

He gestures to her bags, one of which he’d been pulling through the hotel for her. “Oh.”

“Sorry, was that presumptuous of me?” Scott looks at her with concern in his eyes.

“No!” She’s quick to reassure him. “I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess. You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Scott says. The elevator comes to a stop on her floor and the doors slide open. Tessa watches as his eyes flicker between her and the hallway, suddenly unsure.

“Come on,” she commands softly, pulling the bag in her hand out into the hallway. Scott follows her to the door and waits patiently while she figures out her room key and gets it unlocked. Tessa moves inside, but Scott stays, lingering in the doorway.

“Well, uh, I guess I’ll head down to my room now, then?” He fidgets and Tessa thinks this is the first time she’s ever seen him look anything but completely confident.

“You can come in,” she encourages, moving to take the bag he’d been rolling and put it next to the one she’d carried. Scott steps into the room, puts his stuff down in a corner and sits gingerly on the bed. Tessa watches him pick at his fingernails from the corner of her eye as she starts to unpack her things into the dresser along one of the walls.

“Are you seriously unpacking all of your stuff right now?” Scott asks, and Tessa is relieved to hear some of his trademark cockiness back in his voice.

“What, am I expected to live out of a suitcase?” Tessa smooths a stack of leotards down in the drawer. Scott scoffs and even though she can’t see him Tessa knows he’s rolling his eyes.

“We’re here for five days, kiddo. Is that really enough time to warrant moving in completely?” Tessa laughs and the residual awkwardness melts away. “Hey, c’mere.”

Tessa turns around to find Scott reclining on the bed, looking far more comfortable than he had just moments ago, arms open toward her. She crawls up onto the bed, leaving her suitcase thrown open and a drawer half-filled and still ajar. She settles against him and relishes in his arms wrapping around her and his face diving straight into the dip of her neck. He’s warm and solid beside her and she soaks him in.

“Are you excited?” Scott mumbles, not leaving his spot in her neck. Tessa nods and hums in response. “I’m excited. I’m so glad you’re here, Tess.”

They lay there for a while, breathing evening out and aligning. Tessa thinks that Scott maybe fell asleep, his breath coming out in short puffs against her skin. But then he speaks again, and her heart races.

“I wanna be where you are.” He says softly, his lips moving against the sensitive skin of her neck. “I wanna be with you. Always.”

Tessa isn’t sure what it means, what _he_ means, but it sounds like a promise and a prayer and it’s enough.

++

“When you’re high I’ll take the lows, you can ebb and I can flow,” the recorded song plays over a stereo set up in the corner of the room, but Tessa can hear Ben singing along from his position behind the camera. Tessa tries to block it out, focusing on the choreography and the story and the emotion she’s supposed to be portraying on her face.

She lies on her stomach and slides her hand across the cold cement ground. She tries not cringe and just looks at Scott, losing herself in the pain etched into his gaze. She tries her best to mirror the emotion, feels her eyebrows furrow and her breaths come in pants. She rolls to a standing position before Scott, ready to take his hand and move into the next sequence, when the music stops abruptly.

She whips around to face the cameras and the crowd of people gathered. They’re all applauding, and Tessa smiles broadly, more relaxed than she has been since her and Scott’s first rehearsal nearly two weeks ago.

“Alright, you two, we’re gonna take a quick break and then we’ll pick up again.” The director calls out and Scott pats Tessa’s shoulder before heading off in search of water. Tessa turns and finds Ben standing at her side.

“That was magnificent, Tessa, really.” Ben tells her, shaking his head in something Tessa thinks might be astonishment. She blushes, but smiles broadly.

“Thank you so much, it was such an honor just to be involved,” she says back, turning to Scott for his contribution.

It’s become natural for her to refer to him, particularly when receiving praise or feedback regarding choreography, and she forgets he’d wandered off until she turns to look over her shoulder and finds him several paces away, water bottle in hand, striding in their direction.

He must have overheard some of their conversation, however, and she’s surprised when he shakes his head, a tiny thing that she’s sure only she would notice. There’s a smile dancing over his lips, and a look in his eyes that says, _I told you so_.

She thinks back to their first day in New York City, when they had shown the choreography to Ben and the director for the first time, and Scott had accepted their praise for the both of them. In the few days since she’s gained so much confidence, has fed off his energy. She could never have stood and accepted the compliment from Ben Platt two weeks ago, but today she stands with her head held high and her shoulders back.

When they’re finished, she meets Scott’s eyes and sees in them nothing but pride.

Their day finishes then, with the team deciding to shoot Ben for the rest of the afternoon, so Tessa lets Scott lead her out of the warehouse they’re shooting in. She follows him blindly, still disoriented in the unfamiliar city, and assumes he’s leading her back to the hotel. She’s confused when he ducks into a nondescript building that is definitely not their hotel, but follows him anyway.

Inside, Tessa is taken aback by the cozy little Italian restaurant they’ve stepped into. Where the brick façade had been unassuming outside, indoors the room is rustic and warm, flooded with light from candles flickering on tables and twinkling lights hanging across the walls and from the ceiling. Tessa wraps her coat a little tighter around herself, wishing suddenly that she was dressed a little nicer than just the sweater and jeans she’d changed into at the end of the shoot.

The maître d’ leads them to a small round table in the corner Scott pulls her chair out for her. They sit across from each other, and Scott orders wine, and Tessa feels warmth from the candle and the people and Scott fill up her chest.

“You were incredible today, Tess.” Scott tells her over his chicken parmesan. She shakes her head and she’d flush at his sincerity but her face is already warm from the wine. “Seriously. Everyone thought so. You heard Ben, you were magnificent.”

“ _We_ were magnificent, Scott. You, your choreography, your vision was magnificent. I just played a part.” Tessa deflects.

“No.” Scott puts down his utensils and takes Tessa’s hands instead. “No, Tessa. You did so much more than just play a part. You breathed air into my choreography, you brought the piece to life. Nothing I’ve done would be half as magnificent if it weren’t for you dancing it. I’ve had plenty of big moments in my career, plenty of successes. This is yours. It’s your turn to be the star.”

++

“We’ll take it slow and grow as we go.” She should have known that the song would get stuck in her head. It’s not catchy, not in the way a pop song would be, but it’s easy and smooth and it embeds itself in her body in the way only a fantastic song can.

It’s still annoying, though.

They have two days off between their last rehearsal and their flight to New York for the shoot. Tessa has listened to everything but Ben Platt, blasting cheesy pop as she worked out and humming along to oldies as she walked to Scott’s apartment for dinner the night before they’re supposed to leave.

But of course, when she steps through the doorway into Scott’s cozy little apartment, one of the two songs that have been released from Ben’s album is playing through Scott’s Bluetooth speaker.

“Really, Scott?” She groans, nodding toward the speaker as she falls into a seat at his kitchen table.

“He’s my friend, and we need to support his music!” Scott cries out in defense, placing a glass of wine on the table in front of her and a kiss on her cheek. “It’s lovely to see you, by the way.”

“Yeah, yeah, hello, how are you, nice to see you.” Tessa grumbles. They’ve known each other for just a week now, she thinks, and they’ve never really done pleasantries. Which is probably due to the fact that they’ve always just jumped into rehearsal when they’ve seen each other.

Tonight is different. After Tessa’s breakdown during their last rehearsal, Scott had taken her back to his place and cooked for her and they had sat on his sofa for hours, talking over a game show that was playing at a low volume on his TV. They hadn’t seen each other the next day, but he’d texted her nonstop, telling her all about the solo he’d been choreographing and his awful commute and the squirrel he saw when he was having lunch. When he’d asked her if she was free for dinner the following night and she’d said she was, he’d responded with “ _it’s a date (-;_ ” which had caused her to spiral for forty-five minutes, calling her sister in order to analyze the usage of the word “date” and the various meanings of a winky face emoji.

She spends the day lounging around her house, packing for the trip they’re leaving on the next morning, and trying anything to keep her mind off of the date ( _date?_ ) she has that night. By five pm, she’s thoroughly confused, but dresses in a nice pair of jeans and her favorite sweater and hopes he doesn’t expect her to be wearing anything nicer.

Scott pulls the door open mere seconds after she pulls her fist away, and she wonders if he’d been standing just behind it, waiting as anxiously as she has been all day. She takes a moment in his entryway to admire the t-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders and the jeans that draw her eyes to his ass like he’s magnetized as he leads her into the house.

It occurs to her that they’ve never seen each other in anything other than dancewear, and she finds herself feeling self-conscious about her outfit once again.

But when she’s sitting at his kitchen table, legs crisscrossed underneath her, a glass of wine settling warmly in her stomach, watching Scott move easily around his kitchen, all thoughts of proper maybe-date attire flies out of the window. She’s content to just sit here, comfortable in her outfit and the atmosphere.

Scott hums along to the song playing over the speakers, grinning at her when she groans. When the second song finishes, though, he changes it to something soft and instrumental.

He brings two plates to the table and plops himself into the seat across from her.

“Dig in,” he says, still grinning.

They eat in silence, barely looking at each other. Tessa glances at him once and has to resist the urge to put down her fork and just watch him, admire the way his mouth works around each bite, how his forehead crinkles in concentration the same way it does when they’re in the studio. _Creepy, Tess._ She reprimands herself, looking back at her plate and praying the blush she feels creeping up her neck doesn’t make it to her face.

He’s sitting across from her, but she still feels him everywhere. His toes brush against her ankle. He takes her hand that lies across the table. He rubs gentle circles on the back of her hand and her wrist. Her senses are full of him in a way they haven’t been even when she’s wrapped around him, has him under her hands, her face buried in his hair or his shoulder or his neck.

She finally gets the courage to look up at him and she finds him staring back at her. His eyes are practically golden in the soft light of his kitchen and she wants to drown in them. Flame dances behind them, and she wonders what he sees in hers.

She wonders if he can read all of the questions she’s asking with just an intense look. Does he know she’s still unsure about her role in the video? Can he sense her nerves over this evening, completely removed from the professional film they’d been under? Does he understand her worries about their relationship, moving to quickly, burning out when they finish the job? Can he see how badly she wants to kiss him again?

He gets up slowly and quietly, collecting their dishes and utensils and moving to place them in the sink. She gets up to join him, rolling her sleeves up to help him wash up, but he turns away from the sink and grabs her by the upper arms. He leads her to the middle of the kitchen, pausing only to turn the music up, and then she’s wrapped up in his arms and they’re dancing around his kitchen.

One of his hands is heavy on her lower back and the other cups hers gently. She leans her head on his shoulder and lets him lead her in circles around the little room. They’ve spent a week dancing together now, but this is different. This is just a man and a woman, Tessa and Scott, two bodies feeding off of one another without agenda. Every press of Scott’s fingers against her spine is a silent affirmation and every puff of breath Tessa breathes out against his neck has the hairs there fluttering. She gives into it and lets her worries melt away.

Scott kisses her again that night, over and over until Tessa loses count, and then Tessa goes home with the promise of tomorrow on her lips.

++

“I don’t know who we’ll become, I can’t promise it’s not written in the stars,” Scott sings into Tessa’s ear as they curl up in her hotel room bed. Tessa shifts, feeling his chest move underneath her as he dramatically sings the _ah, ah, ah_ s that come next. Tessa giggles at his antics and shoves her fingers into his ribs.

“Shut up,” she groans, which just makes him hum louder. “Seriously, aren’t you sick of it yet?”

After more than a week of rehearsals and shooting, Tessa relishes in the thought that she might never have to listen to the song again.

“Absolutely disgusted,” Scott tells her, which just makes her laugh harder. “And yet I can’t stop singing it.”

“If anything, Ben sure knows how to write a good song.” Scott pulls her tighter against him so she’ll stop wiggling.

“Yeah, if by good you mean gets stuck in your head until it drive you mad,” she says, wiggling just to spite him.

“Stop moving,” Scott commands and Tessa finally acquiesces, settling against him. “You know what else Ben is good at? Hiring dancers.”

Tessa looks up at him just so that he can see her roll her eyes, which makes him squish up his nose and reach out to pinch her cheeks.

“Stop being cute.” Tessa pouts and Scott leans forward to kiss it away. “Seriously, how wild is it that if it weren’t for Ben Platt we never would have met?”

Tessa sighs, knowing where this conversation is headed. She moves again, ignoring Scott’s grunt of protest, so that her chin is propped up against his shoulder and she can look him in the face.

“It’s pretty wild,” Tessa agrees. She can feel the question bubbling up in her chest and as much as she wants to push it down she knows that it will eventually pop. She gives in and lets it pour out of her. “Scott, what are we doing?”

Scott pauses underneath her, the hand that had been tracing patterns on her bare arm freezing, the steady rise and fall of his chest under her head stalling. “What do you mean, Tess?”

She knows him well enough to know that he’s not playing dumb, that he genuinely wants her to elaborate so that he can answer what she really means.

“Like, where is this going? Now that the shoot is over?” Tessa feels Scott take a deep breath beneath her.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I haven’t been thinking beyond this week.”

Tessa nods against him, a sense of relief flooding over her. She hasn’t been looking toward the future either, content to let the week progress without the pressure of defining their relationship. But now she’s reached the end of her plans and she’s worried that soon she’ll begin flailing.

“My life is unpredictable,” Scott continues, drawing Tessa out of a potential panic. “I travel a lot for work, I’m rarely in one place for long. But no matter where in the world I am, I want you there, T.”

“I want that, too,” Tessa breathes, tucking her face back into his neck.

“Good,” Scott says, relief lacing his voice. Tessa feels his arms tighten around her waist. “Do you think you’ll audition for more commercial gigs? Because that will complicate things, too.”

Tessa sighs. It wasn’t just the future of her relationship with Scott she’d been trying not to think about, but also the direction her career may be going.

“I don’t know.” She feels him nod against the top of her head. “I loved this shoot, but I don’t know if this is the right career for me. I always thought I would be a ballerina, performing live on stage every night. I don’t know if two weeks of intense work is worth it for me, not the way that dancing in a company would be.”

“I get that,” Scott says. “But I think, if you want it, this could be the start of an amazing career for you, kiddo. You have what it takes. You just have to reach out and grab it.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. “I just don’t know.”

“The future is unknown. No one knows what’s to come. But I want to be with you no matter what.” Scott presses kisses all over her skin, and she crawls up to meet his mouth. He’s right, she doesn’t know where they’re going, but she’ll be okay as long as she’s in his arms.

++

“But I believe that when it’s done we’re gonna see that it was better that we grew up together.” The lyrics send a shiver down Tessa’s spine as she watches herself move across the screen. She’s avoided the song for the few weeks since they wrapped the shoot, and the song hits her as though she’s hearing it for the first time again.

It really is a beautiful piece of music, and there’s a bitter taste of resentment in her mouth at her inability to truly enjoy it now. She associates it with work, and she struggles to appreciate it as the work of art it is. The gentle chords lilt through the room and Tessa tries her best to lose herself in the song.

She forgets to watch for a moment, eyes unfocused as she thinks about all that this song means to her now.

The shifting of the arms wrapped around her torso and a soft sigh in her ear bring her back to the moment and she fights to pay attention again. On the laptop screen propped on her lap, she and Scott are hugging tightly, her hands curled into his t-shirt, both their faces wrecked with emotion.

She takes in a sharp breath, and the arms around her tighten. She leans back against him, relaxing once again. The video comes to an end, Scott vanishing into thin air for the final time, Tessa racing down the hallway, Ben singing the final note and watching Tessa in the doorway. The final chord rings out and silence descends over the room.

Tessa is crying, and she’s not sure if it’s from the song or the videos or her memories. But when she turns around in the arms holding her close, she finds she’s not alone in her emotion.

“We did it, kiddo,” Scott says as Tessa reaches out a swipes away the track of tears down one of his cheeks. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you, too.” She assures him, leaning in to kiss him. They melt together, and Tessa thinks that taking this job was the best thing she’d ever done.

++

“Tell me you don’t want to leave, cause if change is what you need, you can change right next to me.” Scott traces the words against her arm from his position next to her, breathes them against her shoulder. They’re suspended thousands of feet in the air, but his presence makes her feel grounded.

She’s grateful they’re making the trip together. Tessa has never been good on planes, has always gripped the armrests until her fingers turn white during takeoff and landing, has always bitten her bottom lip until it bleeds in worry. And now she has more than just the flight to worry about, her fears that the plane will crash and she’ll die in a fiery explosion sitting neatly alongside the worries about not being good enough for this video that haven’t seemed to subside permanently, despite Scott’s constant reassurances.

“I know you don’t think you’re good enough,” he whispers, pulling Tessa out of her thoughts and back into the moment. She’s taken off guard at his ability to read her, but she thinks she shouldn’t be surprised. She hasn’t stopped thinking about it for days, he had a pretty good chance of being right.

He reaches up with the hand that isn’t being squeezed by hers and pulls her bottom lip out from between her teeth. She hadn’t realized she’d been chewing on it. He runs his thumb over the chapped flesh and she lets out a shaky breath.

“I get that it’s scary, Tess, I do.” The look in his eyes makes her want to believe him. “But there’s no one in the world who can do what you do. You are more than good enough.”

“But what if you’re the only one who thinks so?” Tessa confesses her greatest fear, the one that can’t be soothed by Scott’s reassurances. She knows now that he thinks she’s good enough, but what if everyone else disagrees?

“I wasn’t the only one who hired you, T. Everyone else involved, everyone who matters, agrees. You’ve got this.” Scott leans his forehead against the side of hers, brushing a kiss against her cheekbone.

“I’ve never been good enough for anything, though.” Her insecurities bubble over before she can stop them.

“That is so far from true, Tess. You’re good enough for this.” Scott’s voice is steady, not wavering once. “You can do anything you set your mind to. You could be the CEO of some company or win three Olympic gold medals or teach the next generation of young dancers or dance in a music video with over a million hits. I have no doubts about any of that.”

She meets his eyes again and she can tell that he believes every word he’s saying. She moves forward to kiss him, melting against his solid confidence beside her.

“I couldn’t do any of it without you,” she says, and she’s surprised to find that she means it. She wouldn’t want any of that if it meant she didn’t have Scott by her side.

“You could, though. You don’t need anyone to propel you into stardom but yourself.” He grips her face between his hands, and she believes him.

“Thank you, Scott.” He smiles, and wraps his arms around her once more.

++

“When you’re high I’ll take the lows, you can ebb and I can flow,” Tessa counts along in her head as the music plays through the wide-open room. When she hears her cue, she twirls around and steps up onto Scott’s waiting thigh.

They’ve rehearsed this lift over and over, in studios in Toronto and New York City and now in this warehouse. It’s the most complex one in the piece, with Tessa balancing precariously on Scott’s shoulders and twisting forward with complete faith that Scott will be there to catch her before she hits the ground.

In the ten days that they’ve known each other, he’s never given her a reason not to trust him. He’s firm beneath her hands, malleable to her touch, reliable when she needs him to be. They’ve worked out dozens of lifts now, trying to figure out which ones suit the choreography best, and she’s never felt anything but safe in his arms.

It’s their last day of filming, and she’s almost sad to see it go. Despite her apprehension and nerves over her first professional job, she thinks it has worked out okay. Scott sends her encouraging smiles, and the fluttering in her stomach comes from fondness now, rather than anxiety.

So she finds herself perched on his left shoulder for what will likely be the last time for this shoot. He guides her around his shoulders as rehearsed, her hands clasped in his. It’s as she’s dismounting, preparing to fall forward over his shoulder and into his arms that she knows something is wrong.

Scott’s right hand squeezes around hers as he moves to grip her thigh and guide her down, but his placement is off. Instead of a firm grasp just above the back of her knee, she feels Scott’s hand brush against her upper thigh. It lacks the security they’ve practiced for over a week, but Tessa’s too far gone.

She dives forward, spinning as planned, but ends up more writhing against Scott’s torso rather than performing the controlled descent they’ve perfected. Without a touch to guide her, Tessa feels herself plummeting toward the ground. She’s sure this is the end.

As the distance between her face and the floor decreases at an alarmingly rapid rate, Tessa squeezes her eyes shut. She focuses on Scott’s fingers flexing between hers, scrambling to grip her thigh. She feels him shift his weight, knees bending and moving to position himself between her body and the ground.

And then there is a firm arm wrapped around her waist. Moments before she’s sure she should be hitting the floor, he’s hoisting her up again, holding her tightly against his chest. He heaves out a sigh behind her as he sets her on her feet.

Tessa thinks the director must have called cut at some point, they must not still be filming, is vaguely aware of a swarm of bodies moving around her. She focuses instead on the arms now holding her as though she’ll disappear if he lets go.

Her blood is pumping in her ears and adrenaline is coursing through her veins. Every time she closes her eyes she sees the rapidly approaching concrete floor she’d just been faced with, and breathing gets a little bit harder. Scott turns her in his arms and she falls against him.

“I’m so sorry, T.” Scott whispers against her neck. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Scott, really.” She reassures him, carding a hand through his hair.

“I’ll never drop you,” Scott murmurs against her skin. Goosebumps rise on her neck and shoulder where his breath tickles against her. “Never. I swear.”

Tessa believes him. He’d never dropped her before, and he had just saved her magnificently from immanent doom. But she lets him assure her, knowing he needs to tell her just as much as he needs her to hear.

“I’ll never let you hit the ground. I’m never letting go.”

++

“We’ll take it slow and grow as we go.” The last notes of the song ring out as Tessa moves toward her bag against the far wall. They hadn’t finished the choreography, but it was only their first rehearsal. The hours had flown by and Scott had looked at her contentedly and she figured they were in a good place to end.

She spares a glance at the man piling his things into his bag beside her. His hair is sticking up in the back and his t-shirt clings to him in a way that she thinks is unfairly attractive. She tears her eyes away when he stands.

“Great work today,” he says, and she glances up to meet his eyes. They’re soft and warm and Tessa wants to get lost in them.

“Thanks,” she says instead, zipping up the top of her bag. “See you tomorrow?”

“Same time, same place.” Scott confirms, nodding and striding toward the door.

She watches him leave, gentle guitar picking playing in her ears, and thinks that they might just create something magical.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this far!! I hope you enjoyed (-:
> 
> And now for some logistical notes: for the people asking, I'm not planning on writing a sequel to I Think The Rest of Campus Melted Away. I'm not really sure where I would take that universe beyond what I've written, and I'm quite happy with how it ended. I promise I have other fun things in the works though!
> 
> However, it might be a while before you hear from me again. I've been on spring break the past two weeks, which gave me lots of time to write (plus I had been writing campus for six weeks before I posted it sooo). I'll be done with the semester in May so hopefully I'll be able to post again then, if not before!
> 
> Lastly, you can now follow me on tumblr at platonicvm.tumblr.com! Come yell at me for making you suffer (-:<


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